Columbia Neighborhood Watch secures city funding to aid protection efforts

COLUMBIA — Columbia Neighborhood Watch has received $10,000 from the city to increase participation, education and other efforts made by the organization.

“The mission of Columbia Neighborhood Watch is to train, form and provide resources to citizens of Columbia,” Neighborhood Watch Board President Herb Watchinski Jr. said. “(This is) for the purpose of organizing and maintaining active neighborhood watches.”

The money will relieve the costs of some of the basic necessities that make the neighborhood watch program what it is.

This includes materials such as session folders, metal signs, website upkeep and more.

“You can see very quickly that even a $10,000 grant is very quickly eaten up,” Watchinski said.

Community members involved in the neighborhood watch make calls to law enforcement — either emergency or nonemergency — when they believe they see suspicious activity.

“It happens on a very regular basis,” Watchinski said. “More recently, groups of particularly juveniles, wandering the streets at 3 o’clock in the morning looking in cars.”

Watchinski said the nonprofit organization strives to bring a community together to make Columbia as safe as possible, but it needs people to get involved and attend trainings it provides.

The neighborhood watch provides free training multiple times a year. Last year the organization hosted seven trainings, resulting in 111 new members, according to the Columbia Neighborhood Watch Annual Report.

These training sessions are the reason Larry Kirschner got involved with the program and ended up securing a spot as a block captain.

“I first went to a training session for neighborhood watch, and I was intrigued at what we could do to help prevent crime in our neighborhood,” Kirschner said. “Following that, I talked to all of our neighbors and got the majority of them to go for training.”

If you are interested in attending a training, visit https://www.columbianeighborhoodwatch.org/training/